Feeling like you want to rough it, but just a little? Not up to hauling everything on your back and skiing miles to get to a cold cabin in the woods? Want to cook on an electric stove and plug in the coffee pot in morning? If so, Owl Creek Cabin in the Flathead National Forest is the place for you. It’s an easy 4 mile drive from the highway, but you’ll still feel kind of tough, since there’s no water in the winter, and you get to build a fire in the wood stove to heat the cabin.

Compared to skiing six miles to get to a very cold cabin (which I wrote about here), or even last year’s shorter hike to another cold cabin, a weekend at the Owl Creek cabin felt like a spa retreat. We cooked great meals, drank great wine, took a hike to some frozen waterfalls on a perfect sunny day, and returned to a warm toasty cabin at the end of the day.

Owl Creek Cabin is near Condon, Montana, on the shore of Holland Lake. In the summer it must be an incredibly busy place, since it’s at the trailhead for packers who are heading into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. There are three big corrals outside the cabin, and I’m sure there’s quite a bit of rodeo action when a number of packers are trying to get everything ready to go in the morning. In the winter, though, there’s no one around. You can ski around Holland Lake or snowshoe up to Holland Falls and have the whole place to yourself. It’s enough to make me like winter.